Abstract

A collaborative creation project, this thesis uses research-creation and oral history to explore Arabic-speaking newcomers’ experiences of displacement and settlement as told through personal objects. It is centered on the involvement of five participants, including myself, who guided the creation of a collaborative art exhibition that combined oral narratives in the form of sound recordings, photography, text, and artifacts.
Using the framework of cultural studies and critical pedagogies, Arabic Speaking Objects employed reflexive approaches and focused on fostering an ethical researcher-participant relationship based on compassion, empathy and agency to examine the pedagogical impact of collaborative art practices on new immigrants’ sense of identity and belonging, with specific reference to Montreal’s diverse Arabic-speaking communities.
Overall, the project resulted in engaging a myriad of discourses around the notion of objects as conceptual entities carrying with them the affective memory of the migration experience. These discourses were then re-constructed and disseminated through a collaborative process/exhibition that re-conceptualized conventional ideas of researcher/artist as main author.
A coffeepot, orthodox icon, identity card, rescue tools, spices, comic books, earring, family photographs, bracelet, Keffiyeh, clothes, soap bar, food and travel souvenirs became the plinths on which five participants shared their stories and journey from their homelands to Montreal.